Eternify Claims To Trick Spotify Into Paying Artists More Through 30-Second Loops

The debate about music streaming and artist revenue continues with the arrival of the website Eternify, which lets listeners play songs from Spotify in 30-second loops in an effort to increase pay-per-stream royalties for artists.

Despite Taylor Swift claiming victory over Apple Music on Monday, Eternify creators and “band in beta” Ohm & Sport, whose debut single "Air Tonight" is currently available on Spotify, SoundCloud and iTunes, say this does nothing to help smaller artists get paid.

“We’re launching Eternify in the wake of numerous false promises of a better future for streaming: Not a single one of these announcements or apparent victories have had any meaningful impact on the vast number of small artists on whom these services depend,” said the band, in a statement to the Verge.

Ohm & Sport says a 30-second stream generates approximately $0.005 in revenue for the artist, while Spotify estimates average per-stream revenue at between $0.006 and $0.0084, with the payout from premium subscribers being “considerably higher.”

In a chart based on real royalties from July 2013, Spotify showed that it paid out $3,300 for streams of a niche indie album, compared to $425,000 for a global hit album. Spotify removed the names of the artists from the chart.

Is this a genuine crusade from Ohm & Sport or an elaborate marketing ploy for their first single? The band has tweeted only twice since Monday and already has more than 9,000 followers.

Neither Ohm & Sport nor Spotify responded to a request for comment by publication time.